Hub peep show palace scrubs off tawdry past

Thursday, February 28, 2013 -- Anonymous (not verified)

Sections:

Real Estate

Friday, March 1, 2013

Author(s):

Greg Turner

Now they just need to figure out what to do with all the adult films they found.

The preservation group Historic Boston Inc. is finishing up an ambitious overhaul of the Hayden Building, an architectural treasure in Chinatown that housed a peep show back when the Combat Zone was in its heyday.

The $7 million effort created four modern apartments, all still for rent, above a retail space that opens onto Washington Street, around the corner from the Centerfolds strip club.

“I still don’t know what we’re going to do with our collection of porn films from the 1970s,” Historic Boston executive director Kathy Kottaridis said during yesterday’s celebration of the project. “We still have them over in our Roxbury offices.”

Workers discovered the pleasure-trove of film reels in the basement, after Historic Boston bought the property 20 years ago in a bid to save it from the bulldozers and wrecking balls of urban renewal.

The 1875 structure was deemed worth saving because it was designed by renowned Hub architect H.H. Richardson, designer of Trinity Church in Copley Square. The Hayden — a model for the modern skyscraper, even at five stories — is Richardson’s only remaining commercial building in Boston.

“(In 1993) we were acquiring an unstable, fire-damaged structure that was then in the middle of what remained of the Combat Zone — imagine that,” Kottaridis said. “Today, it’s a completely different place.”